“I couldn’t find you. I looked all over.”
Nothing terrible had happened.
“I was just trying to make a call.” I patted my phone in my pocket to show her. My phone was actually in my pocket; it had been there all along. I’d come back for something else.
The last of her crying came out in a clotted sigh after the first kiss. We began a series of impatiently off-center ones, as if we were too hurried to land them properly; then our mouths became fingertips, moving blindly over the bumps and hollows of each feature. She stopped, pulled her head back a little and looked at me. Her mouth hung open and her eyes were slow with thought. She was studying my face like she was trying to break it down, find some appeal in it—or maybe figure out how she got here, how this could be happening.
“Come in here,” she said, lifting the starched white sheet.
“There isn’t enough room.” I sat carefully on the edge of her bed.
“Just come in.”
I took off my shoes and she slowly, painfully scooched to one side of the twin bed. The combined width of our bottoms just barely fit inside the guardrails.
We began again, slowly this time. And deep. Her bosom, loose beneath the hospital smock, pressed against mine; she pushed her tongue into me with strong, mature movements and I held her face, that soft, honeyed skin. It was nothing like the things I had once done with her in my head. Phillip and the plumber and all the other men had missed the point completely. The point was kissing. Suddenly she froze, wincing.
“Are you in pain?”
“I am, actually,” she said, a little curtly. It was startling how quickly she changed.
“Maybe you need more fluids?” I looked at her saline bag. “Should I call the nurse?”
She laughed hoarsely. “Let me just think about something else for a minute.” She exhaled a long, controlled breath. “I guess I’m not ready to have these kinds of feelings.”
“Which feelings?” I said.
“Sexual.”
“Oh.”
At eleven I brought us lunch from the cafeteria in the basement; she ate the minestrone soup and the crackers and the yellow cake and the orange juice and then she needed to take a nap. But only after kissing my neck while running one hand through my short hair. It was like a dream, where the most unlikely person can’t get enough of you—a movie star or someone’s husband. How can this be? But the attraction is mutual and undeniable; it is the reason for itself. And like a surprise on the moon or a surprise on the battlefield, astonishment was native to these parts. The climate in 209 was fetid, breeding an exotic flower instead of the natural thing that Carrie Spivack had described. Or maybe she would say that things often became very sensual right before the release of the baby on the third day; maybe this was part of the arc. Tomorrow was day three.
I waited for her to wake up and when she didn’t I went up to the NICU by myself. A couple was taking off their gowns as I was putting on mine. They were talking about used cars.
“You would never buy a car without kicking the tires first,” he said, balling up his gown and throwing it in the recycling by mistake.
“You would if you were taking a leap of faith and trusting that God knew what you could handle.”
“I’m pretty sure God would not want you to buy a falling-apart old junker.”
“Well, it’s too late now,” she said, making a fist around her purse strap. She looked older than her picture on ParentProfiles.com, both of them did. They reeked of their house back in Utah, its old carpets suffused with cigarette smoke. This would be the smell of his life, of him.
“Is it?” Gary said. “Is it too late—legally?” He was scared. He really did not want the car they had bought. “Yes, it is,” she said. Then she gave him a look like Let’s not talk about this in front of that woman. They were terrible people, even slightly worse than most. I stalled, fumbling with the sleeves of my gown. Should I introduce myself or try to kill them? Not violently, just enough that they wouldn’t exist. Amy gave me a polite nod as they exited. I nodded back, watching the door swing shut. It occurred to me that the doctor had said only that the baby would live. Not that he would run, or eat food, or talk. Living just meant not dying, it didn’t necessarily include any bells and whistles.
Kubelko Bondy’s eyes were wide open and waiting.
Every single thing about you is perfect, I told him.
You came back, he said. I bowed my head and tried to come up with a promise that would allow for nothing being in my control.
I love your dear little shoulders, I said. And I always will.
Clee slept until noon and then we went back up together. She put her arm around me in the elevator and kept it there as we walked down the hall. Our hips bumped together in a difficult syncopated rhythm. We passed the couple who used to blame each other and they nodded without flinching. I thought to myself that these would always be the first people I came “out of the closet” to. They seemed very accepting. A few of the nurses looked silently startled by our new intimacy. Maybe because they had thought I was Clee’s mother. Or maybe because they were now dealing with two sets of parents and we weren’t the real ones. Clee gave me a peck on the lips in front of the Isolette. In this quiet way we came out to the baby.
Carrie Spivack had been here too; her Philomena Family Services card was sticking out of the plastic name tag that said Baby Boy Stengl. I palmed it like a magician and moved it into my pocket.
“We can’t keep calling him ‘the baby,’ ” I whispered.
“Okay. Do you have a name?”
This moved me, that she thought I had any right to name him. I pictured trying to explain the name Kubelko Bondy.
“It should come from you, you’re his mom.”
She laughed, or I thought it was a laugh—it ended in a gasping kind of swallow. We noticed a strange red mark on his tiny arm. I waved over a nurse with bleached-blond hair.
“Hi, little dude,” she croaked, checking his monitor. “It’s a big day for you.” She reeked of perfume, perhaps to cover the smell of cigarettes. The mark: a cigarette burn. I felt alive with anger. But I was a manager and knew how to handle this; I could already picture her crying after what I was about to say.
“He comes off the ventilator later today,” she continued. “So we hope he’s a good little breather.”
Clee and I glanced at each other with alarm. Breathing. That was on the top of our list of things we hoped he would be able to do.
“Will you be involved in taking it out?” I said nervously. Please no.
“Yep. We’ll put him on CPAP—continuous air—and see how he adapts.” She winked. It wasn’t a kindly wink, it was a wink that said all the other nurses and all the employees at Open Palm have told me about you, and now—wink—we get our revenge. I looked at her name tag. CARLA. It was too late to buy Carla a gift certificate or a Ninja five-cup smoothie maker. Maybe some candy or a coffee.
She looked at the mark on his arm and made a clicking noise.
“Sometimes when they take the IV out it leaves a mark. But if I’d done it”—she winked again—“there wouldn’t be a mark.”
The wink was a tic. It wasn’t cruel or conspiring, it was just a thing she did. Obviously smoking wasn’t allowed in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. I watched her arrange the cords around his body so they wouldn’t poke at him. Her fingers were quick, like she’d done this nine hundred times before.
Clee asked what time the ventilator would come out.
“It’s scheduled for four o’clock. You can visit him afterward—he’ll be sedated, but he should be much more comfortable.”
“Thank you, Carla,” I said. “We appreciate everything you’re doing.” It wasn’t enough, it sounded fake and silly.
“You’re welcome.” The nurse smiled with her whole face; she didn’t think it was silly.
“We do,” I
repeated vehemently, “we really appreciate everything you’re doing.”
AT FOUR THIRTY WE CALLED the NICU from the floor below.
“It’s taking them a little bit longer than expected,” said the receptionist. “The doctor’s still with him. We’ll call you when it’s done.”
“Is it the tall Indian doctor?”
“Yes, Dr. Kulkarni.”
“He’s good, right?”
“He’s the best.”
I hung up.
“He’s with the tall Indian doctor and they said he’s the best.”
“Dr. Kulkarni?”
I asked Clee to recite all the names of the nurses and doctors while I wrote them down. The short, beefy male nurse was Francisco, the toothy Asian one with glasses was Cathy, Tammy was the pig-faced one.
“How do you know all of this?”
“They have name tags.”
The room grew dark and we didn’t turn on the light. We would turn on the light when good news came and if it never came we would live in the dark like this forever.
FIFTEEN MORE MINUTES PASSED. AND then another five. I got up from my cot and turned on the fluorescents.
“Let’s name him,” I said.
Clee blinked in the light.
“Did you think about a name?”
She put a finger in the air and took a sip of water. She forgot to think of a name. She’s making one up on the spot. My old disgust for her was just right there.
“I have two names,” she said, and cleared her throat. “The first might seem kind of like it doesn’t fit him right now, but I think it will later.” I felt shame for my disgust. The shame felt like love.
“Okay.”
“I’ll just say it,” she said, hesitating.
“Just say it.”
“Little Fatty.”
I waited with no expression, to see if this was really the name.
“Because”—her eyes suddenly filled with tears, her voice cracked—“he will be fat one day.”
I put my arm around her. “It’s a really nice name. Little Fatty.”
“Little Fatty,” she whispered tearfully.
“I don’t think I’ve ever known anyone named that.” I rubbed her back. “What’s the other name?” I asked nonchalantly, knowing this other name would be his name, no matter what it was.
She took a deep breath and on the exhale said, “Jack.”
AT FIVE THIRTY THEY CALLED to tell us that the ventilator was out and he was breathing well on CPAP. We hurried upstairs.
He looked completely different without a big tube in his mouth. He was a baby, a cute little baby with a plastic prong in his nostrils.
“Hi, Jack,” whispered Clee.
Jack is your name now, I explained. But Kubelko Bondy will always be the name of your soul. I took a breath and forced myself to add: You will also have a third name, the one Amy and Gary give you. It might be Travis, it might be Braden. We don’t know yet.
We stood on either side of the incubator and each put a hand in. He squeezed Clee’s finger in his right hand and my finger in his left. He thought they were fingers from one person, a person with one old hand and one young hand. We stood like this for twenty-five or thirty minutes. My back ached and my hand was numb. Every once in a while Clee and I would look over the plastic case at each other and my stomach would go tumbling backward. A chaplain came in and began blessing babies. I looked around to see if this was legal. What about the separation of church and state? No one cared. Eventually he paused in front of Jack and before I could shake my head no, Clee nodded. His prayer swept across the three of us; my face tingled and my head spun dizzily. I felt holy, almost married.
As we walked arm in arm back to 209 I became aware that the woman clicking down the hall in front of us was Carrie Spivack. I subtly slowed our gait and waited for her to peel off to the left or right. But of course she did not, because she was headed for our room. It was day three. Up ahead was a fire extinguisher and a window. I chose the window. Speaking was risky so I just gestured, making an expansive motion toward the view. Clee peered down at the parking lot. The couple who’d once blamed each other ambled toward us, stopping with bemused smiles to see what we were looking at. The four of us peered out the window. A middle-aged man was helping an elderly woman out of a wheelchair and into the front seat of a station wagon.
“That’ll be us one day,” said the wife of the couple who’d once blamed each other. “Me and Jay Jay.” Her husband squeezed her shoulder. I guessed Jay Jay was the name of their baby.
The elderly woman’s legs didn’t work at all, so her son was lifting her from the wheelchair to the passenger seat in one prolonged and unwieldy motion. His mother’s hands were clasped around his neck, holding on for dear life. Amy of Amy and Gary would hang on to Jack’s neck like this one day. Right now it was much too tiny but one day he would be a sturdy middle-aged man, maybe even brawny or burly. He would move his mother with a much swifter motion than this man was able to, saying There you go, Ma, lemme buckle you and we’ll be set to go. My jealousy overwhelmed me; I had to look away.
Carrie Spivack straightened up as we approached, sharpening the corners of her smile and swinging our door open like a hostess. Clee walked right in, thinking she was just another nurse wanting to check her blood pressure.
“I’m sure you don’t mind giving us a moment alone,” Carrie Spivack said to me. She’d figured out I wasn’t the grandma. Or anyone. Behind her Clee gave me a confused shrug and a little half smile. The same half smile the passengers on the Titanic gave to their loved ones on the pier as the boat pushed away. Bon voyage, Kitty! Bon voyage, Estelle!
I floated back down the hall to the elevator.
“Going down?” It was a young Latino couple holding a newborn baby. Blue balloons bobbed from the wheelchair handle.
“Okay, I’ll go down.”
The couple was vibrating; this was the most incredible moment of their lives. They were about to take their baby into the world, the real world. The baby had lots of wet-looking black hair and was fatter than Jack. When the doors opened, the young father glanced back at me and I gave him a nod to say, Yep, your life, here it is, go into it. And they went.
I walked around the lobby. I scrolled through the numbers in my phone; there was no one to call. I mechanically deleted all my saved messages, except the one I’d left myself last year. The ten maximum-loud NOs sounded like wails, an inconsolable woman howling in the street, NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO.
No one was in the cafeteria except a cashier. I ordered some hot water; it came with a slice of lemon and a napkin. I sipped it very slowly, burning my mouth each time. Three of the walls were white, and the fourth was painted in pinks and oranges. It took a little work to see it was a mural of a sunset in a place like Tuscany or Rhodesia. The door I had come through was in the beach part; to the left of the sun an empty paper towel dispenser hung open like a slack jaw, dumbfounded. Not a single thought could be had about what was happening upstairs. It was unthinkable. A railing had been painted along the bottom of the wall, placing the viewer on the terrace of a villa or maybe a palazzo. The salt air filled my nose; giant waves crashed on the rocks below, one after another after another. I cried and cried. Seagulls keened near the ceiling. Far in the distance a figure walked up the beach. He or she was clothed in a flowing white gown. Golden hair and warm Mediterranean smile. She waved. I wiped my face with the backs of my hands. She dropped into the chair next to me.
“I looked in the lobby first,” she said.
“I was there for a while.” I blew my nose on the paper napkin.
She glanced around. “Not very crowded, is it?”
“No.”
She pressed on my lemon slice and licked her finger.
“I didn’t realize that place was so Jesusy.”
“What place?”
“Philomena Whatever. If Amy and Gary hadn’t wanted him he would have gone to some other gross Christian family.”
A weird thing began to happen with the mural. The sun started rising, very, very slowly.
“The lady was okay, though—she didn’t try to hard-sell me or anything. I just said my situation had changed.” She picked up my hand.
Or maybe it had always been rising; maybe it was a mural of a sunrise, not a sunset. Oh, my boy. My sweet Kubelko Bondy.
“I’m not wrong about that, am I?” Clee said, sitting up. “This thing between us?”
“No, you’re right,” I whispered.
“I thought I was.” She settled back in her chair, extending her legs in a wide V. “But communication . . . you know. I believe in communication.”
I said I did too and she said she thought Jack was a pretty cool baby and while she hadn’t planned on being a mom, it didn’t seem that hard unless your kid was a jerk, which she was 100 percent sure Jack wasn’t. “Plus,” she added, “I thought you’d be psyched.”
I said I was psyched. Eight or nine immediate questions came to mind vis-à-vis her relationship to me and my relationship to the boy but I didn’t want to undo anything by overwhelming her. She rubbed her thumb deep into my palm and said, “I need a nickname for you.”
“Maybe Cher?” I suggested.
“Cher? That sounds like an old man’s name. No, let me think for minute.”
She thought with her knuckles against her head and then she said, “Okay, I’ve got it. Boo.”
“Boo?”
“Boo.”
“Like a ghost?”
“No, like Boo, like you’re my Boo.”
“Okay. That’s interesting. Boo.”
“Boo.”
“Boo.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Once the nurses heard that Clee was keeping Baby Boy Stengl, they gave her a breast pump and told her to pump every two hours.
“Even if nothing comes out, just keep pumping,” said Cathy. Carla nodded in agreement. “Don’t look at the bottles, just relax. It’ll come. Bring us every little drop, and we’ll give it to him when he’s off the IV.”